The thing that amazes me about the process is how the cheese is 'rubbed up' so that it matures as a white cheese for most of the time, with the air to create the blue viens only 'allowed in' towards the end of the maturing period.I've not seen this in the recipes here. Is there a reason why it's not done when producing 'stilton' at home?

Somewhere in the LONG King Blue Stilton thread Rik talks about coating the outside of the cheese with some of the left over curds after it comes out of the mold. I've never done this as I have never had any curds left over. Also Rik's recipe calls for pressing the cheese, which is not traditional, but produces a good cheese none the less in the confines of the kitchen. I think we home producers get the best we can from what we have at hand, so compromise if often inevitable. However we do have the satisfaction of knowing that we made it ourselves.

I wouldn't really say ammonia smell, it just smelled really bad, not at all like a Stilton, and if anything appeared a little slimy - I didn't touch it at all, and it didn't seem to develop the usual "stilton" type rind on it. When I compared it to the pictures of other Stiltons at various stages of the process it wasn't even taking on the blue veining at the beginning, so I did suspect something early on, but just left it to monitor the process.

I will try again this week, but one question; what temperature do I keep it at to mature? I suspect mine had too much variation.

I have just made my first cheese following Riks Stilton. But like Franco I decided to leave out the blue cheese first time to see how it goes. Iï¿½m afraid I couldnï¿½t wait for the cheese to mature, I started eating it on the 3rd day (beautiful). Have another go but leave out the blue cheese to check everything is right.

I have question on maturing cheese. Some times the recipe says to mature in a fridge some times at room temperature like Riks Stilton other times at 45 deg F. I have just read a book by Paul Peacoock. And most times just say mature for a certain number of weeks, sometime to mature in a fridge. Any help on maturing cheese would be appreciated for when I start on something a bit more complicated.

I have a larder fridge set to 10 deg C, and try and control humidity with Lock and Lock boxes with the pressure seal in the lid. I have a lump of Value Cheddar bought at Christmas sitting in one of those that has picked up a touch of blue veining presumably from cross contamination that is completely awesome 8 months later On the whole I would like to up the general humidity in the "cave" so will be installing a humidifier this week.